Cross Border Reorganizations

Introduction

Supporting open trade and free movement of capital, ICC opposes protectionism and distortion of competition by means of taxation and supports international cooperation to create a fair and unbiased system governing international tax relations.

Whereas international corporate reorganizations are becoming more and more frequent in order to allow enterprises to adapt to the requirements of the global economy and to increase their productivity, ICC notes that substantial tax obstacles on cross border reorganizations remain.
Such obstacles should be removed in order to facilitate international cooperation between companies and to allow international groups to reorganize their structures and rationalize their activities in whatever manner is most commercially attractive.
Even within the European Union, despite the adoption of the Merger Directive on 23 July 1990, tax neutral mergers or demergers are still impossible or very difficult to achieve because of the lack of appropriate company law provisions.
Moreover a full and correct implementation of the Merger Directive has not been achieved yet in all member states.